EAVESDROPPERS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume X, Issue 19, 6 January 1920, Page 3

EAVESDROPPERS

TREES LISTENING TO WIRELESS MESSAGES. PICKING UP ELECTRIC WAVES. TENNYSON’S TALKING OAK. Lord Tennyson imagined an oak talking. and one of the characters in iis poems found an oak that was “a babbler in the land.” Now it seems that all oaks may be babblers“Wireless” has ushered in a new era of wonders, and the men who make it .heir business to disclose its secrets are rapidly bringing thorn to the knowledge of the" waiting world, just as the goldhunter, when he has found a * pocket,” lays bare the precious nuggets with everv swing of his shovel. A "well-known Americdn radio-engin-eer. Major-General Squier, who has the genius to think and to try out an idea, has discovered that trees pick up wireless waves. It is striking to think that the trees in our garden, every tree in the British Isles, the forest giants of America and Australasia, the olive and cork trees of the Mediterranean countries and the gloomy pines of Scandinavia and Russia, are every moment spying on the wireless work of man. absorbing the electricity flung out bv the great sending stations and tapping our messages.

A TREE, A WIRE, AND A NAIL. But that is not all. The trees can, in their turn, lie tapped, and will deliver up the stolen messages quite readily. How was this found out? Very easily. The inventor simply drove a nail into a tree, fairly high up, and joined thj? nail to his ordinary wireless receiving instrument by means of a piece of wireThe talking oak of Tennyson’s poem was thus made a reality, lor MajorGeneral Squier’s tree immediately sent through the receiver a stream of messages from ships at sea and extracts of pres? news sent out from Germany, over 2000 miles awayThe value of this discovery may be enormous, especially in the ease of moveable wireless stations, such as those used by soldiers and explorers. A marching regiment is calleel upon to Halt I A soldier climbs the nearest tree with his wire and nail- Two blows of the hammer, and the detachment is in touch with headquarters!

’ TREES TELLING THE TIME. Trees can receive long-distance wireless signals of any wave-length, and •Iso serve als receivers for short-dis-tance telephone messages. From the moment an aeorn begins to sprout in the ground, it becomes one of the most delicate detectors and receivers of electric waves. All that is required to make an oak talk is a copper needle driven into it and attached to a receiving instrument. People with a tall tree in their garden will soon £e able to listen to time signals from the Eiffel Tower with no expense in aerial structures.—The Children’s - Newspaper.